


we know, but we’re not telling - yet

by fangirl_squee, madelinestarr



Category: The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: 5 Times, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 02:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5029738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_squee/pseuds/fangirl_squee, https://archiveofourown.org/users/madelinestarr/pseuds/madelinestarr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five moments Sparks put the pieces together about Ginny and one time it didn’t matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we know, but we’re not telling - yet

**Author's Note:**

> co-written with madelinestarr (my sun, my moon, my stars), and beta’d as always by hc-svnt-dracones (who is amazing and wonderful and always makes time for our fics)
> 
> A/N: this is set in the same universe as 'open up the promise of the day, drive the dark things away', but you don’t need to have read that for this to make sense.
> 
> the title is from the Ben’s quote: http://blog.annakie.com/post/130964424158/i-asked-ben-blacker-today-if-ginny-has-always-been

1

It starts quietly enough, Sparks thinks, just a reflex from years of having to solve conflicts before they happen. Sparks picks up on it immediately when Ginny calls him “Sparky.”

He assures Croach that “it’s fine, I’m fine with it”, but he can’t quite shake the memory of Jib Janeen calling him “Sparkles!!”  Anyway, when Ginny calls him that it feels different, there’s more affection in her tone. 

 

2

It’s their fourth date, the next time he thinks about it, when Ginny mentions her traveling as a USSA brat, similar planets that Sparks had visited as a kid with his parents on peacekeeping missions, moving without putting down roots.

But still. Something was odd about it. Ginny seemed to go to war torn planets, planets that were full of scandal, planets full of secrets. But hey, Sparks reasons to himself, everyone has secrets. He pushes any thought of deceit to the back of his mind. Ginny has no reason to lie about that, after all.

 

3

Sparks is happy, on top of the Martian moons about his wedding. His wedding, to Virginia West, the love of his life. Oh gosh. Okay. What did she just say? Something about a comforter?  Oh yeah, for their _marriage bed. **Nice**_. Purple? Sure, sure, dear whatever you say. I love you. Ginny mentions something about red and white stripes, being so difficult, and Sparks nods along, daydreaming about matching curtains and lazy Sunday mornings.

 

4

The moment he puts it all together is the least opportune moment to do so. They’re at their wedding-rehearsal-turned-real-wedding, and there’s something in Ginny’s eyes when she mentions whispering secrets together in the dark that make Sparks think that maybe they’re both thinking about different meanings of that particular phrase. It was the sort of glittery-eyed look of delight that a certain trouble-causing spy had gotten on his face when he was on the hunt for secrets. Just the same as Jib had also had an affection for purple, and gossip, and nicknames.

He would have said something then (even though it was his big day and he’d put a lot of effort into organising everything), but then Ginny reached out and took his hand, and smiled at him, and everything outside of that stopped mattering so much.

And so Sparks finally knew that Ginny wasn’t human, in the same way he knew that he still loved her with everything in him.

 

5

"I love you too, _my buddy_."

And he could tell that she meant it.

 

 

+1

The honeymoon is a lot of fun. Like, a lot of fun. They went to a moon of Neptune, but Sparks could not tell you which one. They spend most of their time in the hotel room, kissing and... _other things_. The world becomes nothing outside of her beautiful blonde hair fanned across his chest as she sleeps. Sparks traces words, vow renewals, sappy lyrics onto her back while he just looks at her.

And thinks. Never say a Marshal _can’t_ be a busybody.

When they get back to Mars, it’s nice. They do get their own place just outside of town. Ginny puts up the red and white striped curtains that Cactoid Jim got off their space registry, Sparks hangs up some bird houses on their back porch. But there’s a second bedroom that eats away at Sparks. Ginny says it’ll be her office, but a few months go by and it stays that yellow and nothing is put in there save a few boxes of old books.

 _Nursery_ , Sparks thinks, ease growing throughout his whole body.

And when, somehow, in the span of six months everyone on Mars seems to get pregnant in the way that folks do after a spate of weddings, Sparks can't handle it anymore. He'd ask Croach, his best friend, to do stake outs with him but Croach is home and waitin’ for his brood to hatch.

He’d ask Red, but she’d tell him to just talk to Ginny about it, and yeah, maybe that _seems_ like the easiest course of action but then he’d have to tell Red that Ginny’s a - he’d have to tell Ginny’s secret, and it’s not his place to tell anyone that if Ginny don’t want people knowing.

He tries taking space away from her, because maybe he won’t think on things so much if she’s not right there in front of him. He spends more time at the station, less time at home. It doesn’t seem to help, his thoughts have a tendency to drift back to Ginny even when folks aren’t asking after her. He hovers with doing things this way for a while, a self-made purgatory of sorts, mainly because he doesn’t want to go to the next step of this yet.

So it’s just him, staring at the two Martian moons, trying to decide how to leave Ginny. How to leave the best thing he has ever known.

One day he finally comes home and Ginny is kissing him hello, kissing him a lot of greetings, and it breaks something inside of him. He oh-so-gently pushes her away, and then recoils his hands, like he can’t stand to touch her anymore.

“Sparks?” Ginny asks, because she is a troubleshooter, and can spot trouble a mile away before she can shoot.

“Sparks,” Ginny says, quietly. A question, a reassurance of love, a plead for answers.

“I just, can’t,” Sparks says, like he’s got a knife to her throat.

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t keep doing this! I’m not- I can’t- I’m broken or something, I dunno. I can’t give you what you want!”

“What I want?” Ginny is confused. She wanted to get space take out but Sparks never has a problem with that.

“Don’t pretend like we have touched that corner room! Or that your eyes don’t light up when you see Mrs Johnson and Felton!” By now Sparks has moved to their sofa, hiding his face in his hands. He says something, mumbled into his palm.

“Sparks, hey,” Ginny lowers her voice, moving slowly to him, like he’s a wounded animal. And maybe he is. “Hey, buddy, tell me what’s wrong.”

“I can’t.... I can’t give you that. I can’t have kids.”

“Wait, what?”

“I’m... infertile? When Jib first came to Mars he had all of his little Jupiter babies and said.... said I couldn’t have one. So that room will always be empty. And maybe the other side of my bed. You shouldn’t have to stay with someone who can’t make you happy.”

Ginny laughs then, her full-bodied laugh, the one that makes her skin turn a shade of purple she can't control. “Sparks Nevada, co-Marshal on Mars, you’re an idiot. But at least you’re mine. Forever.”

Sparks looks up at her, with a look of guarded hope.

“I never touched that room to make it an office because I _know_ how much you want a little bit of your own. And I ain’t ever smiling at Felton’s kids, I’m smiling at your face that I love too much. The way it lights up when you see the Toddler Johnson. I was just waiting on you.”

And so they go to Earth, they go to Jupiter, they even take a look at Martian adoption agencies. But it doesn’t seem right. Sparks loves all of the kids, of course, but he is still guarded around them.

Two months after the Decision, Ginny sees Sparks on a call with Pemily. His whole body is shaking with laughter at something she is saying, and as Pemily taps on the table (is that Morse code?). Ginny makes a call to Deputy Delores County who she has always liked, and thought in another life she could’ve been in her place.

Two days later, she and Sparks walk into the Cactoid Jim Memorial Orphanage for Kids With Secrets from Moon Punishment Soccer and walk out with a beautiful, timid little girl.

Geri Harriet Nevada.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi: madelinestarr // mariusperkins


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